Maybe
by KarotsaMused
Summary: Gojyo considers the 'what-if's about the stranger he's taken in - rated for language


A/N: Disclaimer: Saiyuki evidently is not mine. What the hell would I be doing here?  
  
One-shotter Gojyo PoV set before Gonou regains consciousness. Comparisons and then a present-tense narrative. Yeah, I couldn't stay in one style.  
  
Warnings: Language, the surfacing of Gojyo's propensity for bad puns and circular narrative.   
  
After writing this, I realize I fear more for Gonou waking up in Gojyo's presence than the other way 'round. *grin*  
  
Enjoy  
  
***  
  
Maybe he's tainted.  
  
*  
  
Nothing was ever quick and clean and easy with me. Nothing that utterly tipped the balance in the scheme of things, anyway. I was the down-and-dirty boy, the punk that fought for respect he never fully got and came away smiling through the blood. I was the bravado built in grime and vulgarity, shallow enough that nobody really cared if I was telling the truth. I'd make them believe.  
  
And the work was always so slow. Learning through falling down, through nearly getting myself killed, from bawling my revolting eyes out as I lashed at my reflection in standing water. Two steps forward, one step back, dragged by my ankles as my fingernails ripped away against indifferent would-be handholds.   
  
It's not so bad, stinking to holy hell. But I've never really been clean.  
  
*  
  
He could be crazy.  
  
*  
  
I am insane in my own ways, as insane as anybody could be that has a driving need. Kill me if you'll smile later, just stop crying. Pretend you love me if I pay you. Pretend you love me if I win this game. Everything I've got is a sham that'll probably kill me, but I like it that way.  
  
I'm in a niche here. Here with my smokes to rot my lungs, the drinks to kill my guts, the women to fog my mind. My body is my temple, ravaged from all sides until the sheer idiotic delicacy of it is misconstrued as beauty. All the fingers that tangle in my hair and the sweet blue, brown, gray eyes that meet mine are just ornaments hung upon crumbling walls.   
  
It's not so bad, being ugly and crazy. But beauty doesn't necessarily come with being sane.  
  
*  
  
What if he's ungrateful?  
  
*  
  
I've got a lot to be thankful for. I thank myself. There's nobody else I really want to count on, because nobody's ever done anything for me. My mother, I'll ever think of her that way, was killed so she'd stop crying. I couldn't do it on my own, and bro stepped in to give his inept kid sibling a hand. That I made it out was my own making. The same reason I'm good at cards.  
  
I trust myself not to let slip who I really am, what's in me and, technically, whoever I'm taking home for the evening. I trust myself to keep my own secrets and I have yet to let me down. I like that. No-one but me, so I don't owe anybody. No-one but me, so I don't hold anybody dear. No-one but me, because I won't hurt me. Except on those nights when I'm stupid enough to let myself dream. That's what the beer's for, what the girls are for. I'll shove my head in a water-barrel until I collapse and fall out, because I save me from death at the same time I don't have to dream.  
  
It's not so bad, knowing nobody but myself. But I'm so sick of the same old conversations.  
  
*  
  
He's going to be different. He's going to be just like me. He's going to be cold. He's going to understand.  
  
I want him up. I want him down. I want him out. I want him here.  
  
He's gorgeous. He's disgusting. He's broken. He's austere. He's wretched. He's perfect.  
  
*  
  
I step outside to smoke, mindful of the doctor's orders, wondering why the fuck I'm going through all this trouble for him. I don't even go out anymore, but spend all my time tending to him. Tipping water down his throat, maneuvering his body through the motions he's unable to perform for himself. And always mindful of the wounds on him.  
  
The blood on him, pooling in the cavity of his ravaged body, left a stench I can't get out of the back of my throat. There's still a funny little gagging tug in my mouth every time I change out the bandages. Every time I press my hands over his puckered skin to force the infection out. I can never rinse my hands soon enough, can never get enough of the sickness off of me.  
  
I take a hard drag on the cigarette, killing it if only because I smell him on the fingers holding the fag to my mouth. I drop my hand and exhale stinging smoke so my eyes water and when I breathe he's not in me.  
  
I'm running out of money and food, but I don't want to leave him. I don't want him to wake up while I'm gone and I don't want anyone else to find him. He's my prize and my shameful, hidden thing. I know people talk because I made a doctor come all the way out to -me-. I know people talk because I've been away from the pubs for longer than usual. I know people talk because I'd gossip about me, too.  
  
It's hard not to jump to conclusions, especially concerning him. I've been driving myself crazy just wondering, not daring to imagine his first words to me because there might not be any. If he doesn't survive long enough to meet me, I'll kill him. Or something.  
  
I go inside for lack of anything else to do, affecting the apathy with myself so I don't even realize I'm going to make sure he's still breathing.  
  
I've heard his voice before, only once, when his fevered infection reached its climax. An incoherent syllable either ecstatic or terrorized, nothing more than "Naa...!" He clawed at himself until I pulled his scarred fingers from his own face and held him down. He was burning hot but did not sweat. I held him in his thrashing silence until the beads of moisture began to form around my hands and down his arms until he was coated in it. His jaw hung slack so that his mouth was open, and his dry lips moved ineffectually around the air he breathed.  
  
That one desperate, tingling gasp was no preparation for the soft breathiness of his mutterings to himself.  
  
I put my hands on either side of his head and lean down, retorting as the shock on his face dissipates into an unobtrusive emptiness that's oddly familiar.  
  
Excuse me for bleeding on this ground, rendering it fallow. Is that my liver on your shoe? Dreadfully sorry. I find it hilarious, my guardian angel, oh, rush me to safety as fast as you can!  
  
It comes to me again as his one eye meets the two of mine and politely flinches away, and I can't look at him. I grab a pack of cigarettes from the table to steady myself, to give my hands something to do.  
  
I took him in to spite him, to prove to him that I could do it. Every speculation I could have made left me unprepared for him. There's something there I don't want to fathom. And here I am, talking to him for the first time since mistaking him for a corpse.  
  
He's as tainted as a side of meat left in the sun. He could very well be crazy, with a smile like that. I don't know if I want him to be grateful to me. But now that he's here, there's no real backing out. I'm just going to have to see what he decides to show me.  
  
I get him a cup of coffee and, with a grin, settle in for the long haul. Nothing was ever quick and clean and easy with me. 


End file.
